'Yes We Care' rally calls on African-Americans to band together to fight crime

Rusty Costanza / The Times-PicayuneRev. John Raphael cleans up blood in the 2800 block of Clouet Street on Jan. 1 after Aaron Myre, 18, was shot to death. Raphael is organizing a unique crime rally Saturday to urge African Americans to rise up against street violence.

Some black clergy and community leaders are quietly building support for an unusual event designed to give public voice to the grief of relatives of young black men gunned down in New Orleans -- an attempt, its organizers say, to urge the African-American community to rise up collectively against those who shoot up neighborhoods.

On Web sites and radio, in churches, in schools and community groups, organizers are circulating word to come to Armstrong Park, next to the French Quarter, Saturday at 10 a.m.

Their destination, a three-hour event called "Yes We Care, " will not look like a traditional rally, said the Rev. John Raphael of New Hope Baptist Church, a leader of the effort.

"It's not a festival, " he said. There will be no food or crafts for sale, no health screenings. Politicians are welcome, but are not part of the program, he said.

Rather, Raphael said, the gathering will be in part a public lamentation, partly a call for self-examination, and partly a plea to African-American institutions to come together and raise their collective voices against street violence.

The event is designed to uncover voices of mourning that Raphael and others believe are not widely heard. The point is to end a silence that suggests to New Orleanians that young black men who slaughter one another are anonymous and disposable.

"I'm convinced it's not that people don't care, " Raphael said. "It's that their voices are never heard."

Stories of loss

At the park, mothers and grandmothers of slain black men, with the mothers of their children, will be asked to tell the audience about their deaths and the repercussions.

They may include some whose stories Raphael has already gathered in short videos on a Web site: www.yeswecareno.com.

Among them is Jocelyn Manuel, who was raising her 16-year-old grandchild, Terrell Riley, because her son, Albert Manuel -- Riley's father -- was shot to death at 21 after testifying in a criminal trial in 1992.

In February her grandson, displaced to Texas by Hurricane Katrina and briefly visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras, was shot to death in eastern New Orleans.

As pastor of a church in Central City, where gun violence is common, Raphael has a long personal history of anti-crime initiatives, often with other pastors.

The Revs. Willie Gable of Progressive Baptist Church, Alden Cotton of Jerusalem Baptist Church and Bishop J. Douglas Wiley of Life Center Cathedral in Algiers are also among the core organizers of the Saturday gathering, Raphael said. But the roster of supporters also includes community groups, the Orleans Parish School Board and the Recovery School District, he said.

'Living in despair'

With more than 200 fatal shootings last year and so far this year -- almost all of them involving young black men -- organizers believe that the black community is numbed to violence in its midst, and the white community is dismissive.

"People are living in despair, " Raphael said. "The perception among many is that their lives, and the lives of others they would take, are not as valuable as other lives."

When brief news accounts of another black man gunned down offer a name, no motive and a plea for witnesses before moving on, "we can emotionally detach from that person by saying it was his fault. There's a total loss of humanity, " he said.

In addition, in the collective silence following the shootings, young men believe they have permission to spray neighborhoods with gunfire from assault weapons, Raphael said.

More than trying to illustrate the sense of loss, "Yes We Care" will also ask leaders of black institutions -- churches included -- to examine where they may have failed young men or their mothers years earlier.

And there will be a call for black institutions to set aside differences of ego or competing programs to collectively work toward solutions, Raphael said.

"There are things we have neglected, " said Cotton, one of Raphael's key allies. "There was a time when the community looked out for its children. You could be two blocks from home, but if you were doing something you shouldn't, somebody would say something to you. We need to regain those principles."

Convergence point

A number of black churches in the city are organizing transportation to ferry people to Armstrong Park. Some public schools will provide busing for high school bands and student choirs.

Other bands have been engaged to lead second-lines from Central City, from the area around North Broad Street and Orleans Avenue, and from St. Claude and Franklin avenues -- all converging at the park on North Rampart Street.

The point: To attract young men most prone to violence or becoming victims.

In addition, for almost two weeks, organizers have circulated through churches, community groups and on the street thousands of so-called "cease-fire agreements, " asking signatories to pledge not to take a life in revenge for one taken earlier.

Saturday's event is deliberately by and for African-Americans, without assistance from white or racially mixed churches or other groups, Raphael said.

"This is something our young people need to hear from us, " he said.

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Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3344.